Deadly Klamathon Fire forces Gov. Brown to declare state of emergency

The Oregon Dept. of Transportation posted this photo of the Klamathon fire burning both sides of I-5 south of Hilt interchange on Thursday July 5th.

The Oregon Dept. of Transportation posted this photo of the Klamathon fire burning both sides of I-5 south of Hilt interchange on Thursday July 5th.

Photo: Twitter / @OregonDOT

Photo: Twitter / @OregonDOT

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The Oregon Dept. of Transportation posted this photo of the Klamathon fire burning both sides of I-5 south of Hilt interchange on Thursday July 5th.

The Oregon Dept. of Transportation posted this photo of the Klamathon fire burning both sides of I-5 south of Hilt interchange on Thursday July 5th.

Photo: Twitter / @OregonDOT

Deadly Klamathon Fire forces Gov. Brown to declare state of emergency

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A wildfire that leaped over the Klamath River before surging into the woodlands near the Oregon-California border claimed the first fire-season fatality in the state Friday morning, and kept fire crews racing to contain it all day.

The Klamathon Fire, which started near the tiny town of Hornbrook (Siskiyou County), has forced evacuations, damaged or destroyed at least 12 structures, and by Friday evening it had ravaged roughly 9,600 acres and was only about 5 percent contained, according to local officials and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

“As we speak the winds are starting to change direction on us,” said Mark Brown, an operations section chief with Cal Fire Incident Management Team 4 during a Friday night press briefing. “The wind is blowing out of the north again and the flank of fire that is to the east and north of the Hornbrook community could again push back down.”

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More than 60 large blazes burning across the United States, mostly in the West. A wildfire southeast of Salt Lake City burned more than 60 square miles. A fire southwest of Denver grew to about 160 square miles. (July 6)

Brown said firefighters have been battling steep, rocky terrain, heavy timber and other fuels, and heavy smoke conditions on the fire’s edge.

The red flag warning for the region is set to expire Friday night, which may bring more moderate weather conditions for the next two nights, said Tim Chavez, a fire behavior analyst with Cal Fire’s Incident Management Team 4.

“That will also allow some good humidity cover,” Chavez said during a Friday night press briefing.

It is just the latest of three major blazes to erupt in the past two weeks in Northern California, adding to a cluster of fires from San Diego to Yreka (Siskiyou County) that have created an unusually early fire season that has officials on edge.

“Some of the fire behavior we’re seeing now is more of what we’d normally see later, like in September,” said Cal Fire Capt. Amy Head. “Cooler temperatures would obviously be helpful, but we’re not going to see that right away.”

The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that fire crews located the body of a resident among the charred ruins of a neighborhood of Hornbrook at about 5:30 a.m. Friday. More details were unavailable, as law enforcement has struggled to identify the body, said sheriff’s Lt. Jeremiah LaRue, a spokesman for the office.

“We don’t even have an address because of the devastation around the area,” he said. “There’s stuff burned everywhere.”

But as of midday Friday, law enforcement did not expect any more fatalities.

“We’re actually pretty hopeful everyone got out,” LaRue said. “We’ve been talking to people who evacuated, and no one’s missing right now, so that’s good.”

The Klamathon Fire jumped Interstate 5 just south of the Oregon border on Thursday afternoon, shutting the southbound lanes for almost a day.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency Thursday in Siskiyou County, noting that residents were in “extreme peril.”

The Sheriff’s Department sent out an evacuation alert to residents of Hornbrook and Hilt at about 1:19 p.m. Thursday, said LaRue, who estimated about 400 people had fled their homes.

“The flames are hot and they’re jumping back and forth across the freeway,” he said. “It just moved super fast to the northwest and is spreading east and west of the freeway.”

Officials have yet to officially identify what started the blaze, but they have a good idea of where it started.

Yreka California Highway Patrol dispatch records show that at about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, a resident at a property southeast of the Klamath River near Klamathon and Ager roads called dispatchers saying he or she had “started” a small fire on a friend’s property and that it was “out of control.”

The dispatch records indicate the fire ignited a tree, jumped the river by early afternoon and rapidly grew as it took off into grassy hills studded with trees.

Brianna Derra, 20, a resident of Montague, a neighboring town of Yreka, said she was walking at dusk Thursday when she came upon “a red glow over the hill.”

“You’re standing there knowing people’s homes are burning, people’s livestock,” she said. “I went to high school with a lot of people from that area. Everybody knows everybody.”

This is the second major fire in recent years that has torn through the rural spread of California towns near the Oregon border. In 2014, the Boles Fire devastated the town of Weed, about 40 minutes south of Hornbrook on Interstate 5, and it destroyed more than 150 homes.

“It’s awful to see that kind of destruction to such a tight-knit community again,” Derra said. “At the same time, though, there’s a lot of people coming together to help out these fire victims and evacuees just like there was after the Boles Fire.”

An evacuation order was still in effect Friday for Klamathon Road, from Interstate 5 to Ager Road, as well as for residents of Hornbrook and the communities of Hilt in California and Colestin Valley in Oregon, according to Cal Fire.

Nancy Hood, 36, a resident of Yreka — a city of 7,600 people just 19 miles south of Hornbrook — said she was concerned about her friends and neighbors.

“My friend is out on the line right now just trying to save his home,” Hood said. “They’re trying to get a lot of the farmers’ animals out. Even stray animals, they’re saying pick them up and bring them in.”

#Klamathon Fire It is at 500 plus acres and zero percent contained. Multiple structures are threatened. An evacuation order is currently in effect for Klamathon Road from Interstate 5 to Ager and all Hornbrook. The evacuation orders now include the Hilt /Colestein Valley areas. pic.twitter.com/v2AEoygGKv

Meanwhile, the massive fire burning in Yolo and Napa counties continued to challenge firefighters from across the state as they struggled to contain the northernmost part of the blaze, which on Friday entered its seventh day and had burned nine structures.

The County Fire grew by more than 300 acres by Friday morning, engulfing 88,375 acres in total. Steep and inaccessible terrain has prevented firefighters from establishing a containment line on the northern end of the fire, officials said.

Meanwhile, in Lake County, the Pawnee Fire was 92 percent contained and had burned 15,000 acres. At least 22 structures had been destroyed and six damaged by Friday, but fire officials said no other structures were threatened.

One firefighter was injured in the blaze, officials said.

In Alpine (San Diego County), the West Fire on Friday ripped through the area near Cleveland National Forest to burn more than 350 acres. The fire burned at least five homes and as many as a dozen, according to journalists at the scene. The governor also declared a state of emergency for the county.

Other fires in the state to reach triple digits Friday in burned acreage included the Box Fire just north of San Bernardino and the Irish Fire in Amador County near Sacramento.

The Irish Fire grew to 200 acres with 5 percent containment as of Friday afternoon, according to Cal Fire.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Lauren Hernandez and the Associated Press contributed to this report.